Facebook is spying on people in “the very same way” that the NSA does, said the Belgian data protection watchdog at a court hearing where the social network stands accused of violating the privacy of internet users.
The Belgian watchdog has filed a lawsuit against the social network, accusing it of breaching EU law and violating the privacy rights of internet users. The BPC issued a report, arguing that Facebook tracked everyone, even users who had logged-out and people who don’t even have a Facebook account at all, via the use of cookies and the ‘like’ or ‘share’ buttons which can be found on more than 13 million websites worldwide.
Read moreA new variant of mobile ransomware that encrypts the content of Android smartphones is putting a new spin on both how it communicates with its masters and how it spurs its victims into action.
The updated version of Simplocker masquerades on app stores and download pages as a legitimate application, and uses an open instant messaging protocol to connect to command and control servers. The malware requests administrative permissions to sink its hooks deep into Android. Once it's installed, it announces itself to some victims by telling them it was planted by the NSA — and to get their files back, they'll have to pay a fine.
Read moreA US appeals court has thrown out a lower court’s ruling that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records is unconstitutional, adding to the legal uncertainty over the controversial spying programme.
The ruling by a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the DC circuit threw out a December 2013 injunction that banned the NSA from collecting in bulk the so-called “metadata” of US telephone users which track to whom calls are placed and how long they last. That practice is set to end later this year under new legislation, the USA Freedom Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law in June.
Read moreIn order to obtain a copy of the NSA's main XKeyscore software, whose existence was first revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013, Germany's domestic intelligence agency agreed to hand over metadata of German citizens it spies on.
After 18 months of negotiations, the US and Germany signed an agreement in April 2013 that would allow the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to obtain a copy of the NSA's most important program and to adopt it for the analysis of data gathered in Germany. This was a lower level of access compared to the non-US "Five Eyes" nations which had direct access to the main XKeyscore system.
Read moreThe National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T.
While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly disclosed NSA documents show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. One document described it as “highly collaborative,” while another lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.
Read moreChina's cyber spies have accessed the private emails of "many" top Obama administration officials, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official and a top secret document obtained, and have been doing so since at least April 2010.
The email grab was detected in April 2010, according to a top secret NSA briefing from 2014. The intrusion into personal emails was still active at the time of the briefing and, according to the senior official, is still going on. In 2011, Google disclosed that the private gmail accounts of some U.S. officials had been compromised, but the briefing shows that private email accounts from other providers were compromised as well.
Read moreLeaked e-mails from Hacking Team show that the company developed a piece of rugged hardware intended to attack computers and mobile devices via Wi-Fi.
The capability, marketed as part of the company's Remote Control System Galileo, was shown off to defense companies at the International Defense Exposition and Conference in Abu Dhabi, and it drew attention from a major defense contractor. But like all such collaborations, it may have gotten caught up in the companies' legal departments. Co-founder Marco Valleri outlined the roadmap for a number of Hacking Team's platforms, including its "Tactical Network Injector".
Read moreThe US National Security Agency undertook systematic mass surveillance of Japanese politicians, ministries and corporations over a number of years, according to recently published documents. The revelations come from whistleblowing organisation WikiLeaks, which released a list of top secret targets in Japan.
The most high-profile target listed in the "Target Tokyo" documents is the current Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzō Abe, while corporations named include car-manufacturing giant Mitsubishi. The documents also reveal that the US bugged Japan's confidential G8 proposals on climate change, as well as spying on Japan's secret World Trade Organisation plan.
Read moreThe White House has rejected a petition to pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, dubbing the former contractor’s revelations about the US government’s surveillance apparatus as “dangerous” and compromising to national security.
Responding to a “We the People” petition, launched after Snowden’s initial leaks were published two years ago, the Obama administration reiterated its belief that he should face criminal charges for his actions. The US government filed espionage charges against Snowden shortly after his revelations were made public. He has been living under asylum in Moscow, after fleeing the US for Hong Kong in the wake of the leaks.
Read moreA leaked NSA intercept shows that German FM Steinmeier was relieved to have “not received any definitive response” from the US on its rendition program at the time of the scandal, which exempted him from the need to act on the matter.
The WikiLeaks publication intercept of the German FM’s communications, which was undertaken after his official visit to the US in November, 2005. After the first reports on "rendition flights" emerged in the media, European governments denied any knowledge of the CIA program, but continued providing airspace and airport facilities to the US security agency which facilitated it.
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